Bruin Fleischmann fills out multiple NCAA Tournament men’s basketball brackets each spring and has long had a tradition of picking UConn to win it all in at least one of them.

So when the Air Force tight end saw the Huskies added to the Falcons’ schedule last year, a little excitement followed.

“I was like, ‘Wow, that’s super cool that we get to go out there and play them,’” Fleishmann said. “I get it’s not basketball, but it’s still very exciting in that sense.”

If this matchup and its timing feels a little unique and strange, it’s for good reason.

Air Force (3-6) and UConn (7-3) have never played in football. In a sport where matchups can be scheduled a decade in advance, this was relatively last minute. The Falcons’ trip to Connecticut and the Huskies’ return trip to the academy set for Oct. 31, 2026, was publicly announced in early February 2025.

The gap on this year’s schedule was created when Sam Houston State bought out its return trip to Air Force when the Bearkats instead accepted an offer to play Oregon State. UConn, as an independent, had an opening on its slate and filled the void.

The Falcons were supposed to play Sam Houston State on Sept. 13, so that instead became an early open week in the schedule and this late spot was filled.

And so Air Force’s equipment truck arrived back in Colorado Springs late Monday night from San Jose State and prepared for a one-day turnaround to hit the road again.

Falcons’ coach Troy Calhoun and his UConn counterpart Jim Mora have met only once in their long careers that Calhoun can recall. That came in a 2004 NFL matchup when Calhoun was an assistant with the Denver Broncos and Mora was in his first year as the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons.

Calhoun remembers well that Falcons quarterback Michael Vick “went crazy that day” and threw for 252 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 115 yards and Atlanta won 41-28 in Denver.

Calhoun and Mora have never met.

“I don’t think I’ve ever even shook his hand,” Calhoun said. “I look forward to it.”

For Air Force’s many players from the Eastern Standard Time Zone (the team generally finds that roughly 40% of its players come that that zone), this is a rare second chance to play close to home. There’s generally one chance, with the Falcons visiting Army or Navy, but this is a bonus.

“Colorado is far from home, so a lot of games it’s difficult for them to come and see,” said sophomore safety Roger Jones Jr., a Maryland native who had a large group on hand to watch him make a career-high 13 tackles in a loss at Navy earlier this year. “It’s fun. All the people who sacrificed for me, it allows them to see the fruits of their labor. It takes a village.”

The downside to the scheduling is that Air Force is catching UConn on what may prove to be its apex. While Sam Houston State is just 1-8 (the win coming against, of all teams, Oregon State), the Huskies have beaten a pair of ACC teams and suffered all three of their losses in overtime.

This was a program that didn’t win more than three games in a season from 2016 through 2021 but with its strong start to 2025 and a 9-4 mark last year is a looking a lot more like the squad it had from 2007-2010 that reached the AP Top 25 in three out of four seasons.

“They’ve had some really, really good teams over the years,” Calhoun said. “And yet this may very well be the best one they’ve ever had there.”